Consider there is a company say LinkedIn. Which are the top three metrics you would see first thing in the morning?

Metrics for Linkedin

Mission

• To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.

Current product offerings/solutions

• Corporate users
  • Talent solutions for recruiters
  • Sales/marketing for businesses
  • Advertisers
  • Analytics/insights on workforce/jobs etc
• Retail users
  • Job seekers
  • profession development - updates/profile
  • Content creators

Interject and check with interview which offering we want to focus - suppose retail user

Business Model

• freemium (retail user)

Short Term Focus

• To drive engagement
  • Linkedin exploring video content forms such as linkedin shorts
  • Emerging Content creation and engagement
• Metrics : for retail users 
  • Acquisition
    • No. of new users - granularity of (D/W/M) , demographics
    • Channel effectiveness
  • Activation
    • % of people completing profile by
      • 1st level details (name current title), 2nd level details(past companies and titles + education), 3rd level (past experience description etc)
    • Average follower request for new users in one month/quarter duration
    • Average follow acceptance for new users in one month/quarter duration
  • Engagement
  • User intent
    • Casual User
      • Average session time
      • DAU and MAU
      • Average number of text messages sent per user (D/W/M)
      • Average number of friends (user messaged) (D/W/M)
    • profession updates
      • Average number of profile viewed per user
      • Average number of impression/likes/comments on new job update post
      • Average number of followers per users (D)
      • Average number of requests sent per user (D/W/M)
    • job seeker (Non premium user vs premium user)
      • % of people clicking on job postings (daily)
      • % of people applying for atleast one job (daily)
      • Average of (Total number of jobs per search criteria) per user
      • average number of jobs applied D/W/M
      • Average number of messages to distinct recruiters per user - D/W/M
        • premium - number of inmail credit utilised
        • vs non premium (number of inmail free credit utilised
      • out of scope
        • acceptance rate/conversion - to be covered in recruiter bucket
        • Total number of jobs postings
    • profession development/learning
      • Average number of views/shares/likes/reaction/comments per post per user
      • Number of courses subscribed (free vs paid) - D/W/M
      • Number of courses shared (free vs paid) - D/W/M
    • content creator
      • Top 10 hashtags
      • Daily number of posts/Shorts
      • Average number of posts/Shorts per user - W/M (top voice vs non, premium vs regular user)
      • Average number of reshares/impressions/likes/comments/reactions (top LinkedIn voices vs non ) per post vs Shorts
  • Conversion
    • % of premium account users
  • Retention
    • Customer Stickiness - DAU/MAU
    • Churn rate per month
    • % of users not renewing premium membership
    • % of users opening D-1, D-3, d-7, D-30
• Prioritisation
  • North star metric
    • Average session time
    • % of users opening D-1, D-3, d-7, D-30
    • % of premium account users
  • Input Metric
    • Average of (Total number of jobs per search criteria) per user - retention. In order to meet supply demand and relevant
    • Daily number of posts/Shorts - engagement through content creators
    • % of users not renewing premium membership
  • Counter Metric
    • Pie chart of published content (based on sentiment analysis) - jobs, skill development, personal development, entrepenuership, society etc (Threat to linkedin mission if we deviate from professional or growth conversations and share various other content)
    • Number of posts reported innapropriate/fake/profanity
    • Prevent spread of hate, negativity, polarising content

Clarification

1. Linkedin has two major groups of users: professionals and companies. for this question, are we focusing on one of them or both (assume just focus on one of them)

2. Are the metrics measuring a specific goal or the general product health(assume general product health)

3. should the metrics reflect the changes by day 

Goal

Linkedin is the largest professional network with multiple additional functions like job board and learning.

The goal of linkedin for regular users is assisting them with career advancement.

Metrics

I'd like to measure the platform health from the following perspectives

1. Engagement

Primary metric: Daily active users (users who login and use any of the linkedin functions like viewing posts, learning, etc)

2. Monetization

Primary metric: # of active premium subscribers 

3. Growth (Acquisition)

Primary metric: % of changes on premium subscribers 

Since linkedin already has a large population, it is more reasonable to focus the growth on the premium subscriber. unless it's specificly mentioned that linked would like to expand to a new market.

Clarifying Questions 

Are we looking at metrics for the B2B business or B2C business? B2C business we are looking at individuals

Goal? You can decide. 

Any specific problems we recently addressed? None

About LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is the largest professional network all over the world. Most professionals - artists, professionals, sportspeople etc join linkedin to grow their career or connect with the right set of people or brands to expand their career. 

Business Goal :  To increase engagement on the platform.

User Goal : To engage with the right people to establish connections which help elevate career or help users in their day to day work. 

Users : There are various kinds of users 

Professionals

Brands / Businesses 

Artists / Influencers 

Currently we are focussing on the 1 and 3 and not business facing services. 

Metrics

Awareness / Acquisition : 

1) number of new signups daily

Usage  ( this will really indicate engagement) 

2) daily active users, weekly active users 

3) average 1st order connections per user 

4) average 2nd order connections per user

5) number of posts per user 

6) number of posts commented on per user 

7) number of posts reacted on per user

8) breakup of type of posts created 

9) average daily new connections per user 

10) number of daily direct conversations per user 

11) number of weekly or monthly inmails per user 

Revenue 

12) monthly active subscribers, yearly active subscribers 

13) new subscribers each month 

14) monthly or yearly recurring revenue 

Prioritization 

i think we should look at the impact of each metric on achieving the current business and user goals. 

Metrics with most impact : 2, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12

My thoughts on attacking this metrics question in a PM interview...

Clarification segment :

Candidate(C): Since you mentioned Linkedin, can I use Linkedin as a case study for this exercise.

Interviewer(I): Sure, you can use Linkedin, answer as if you are the PM for LinkedIn.

(C): Can I focus only on the US market? The metrics to closely track will be different for the mature market and developing market.

(I) Ok, the USA is acceptable for the discussion.

(C): Are there metrics for any specific goals for the company? The general health of your offering, profit generation, etc.

(I): It is a great question; I like you to identify what Linkedin should be monitoring for the USA market today considering its position.

About the company/product.

Linkedin provides a platform for industry professionals to network with others in the industry. Before Linkedin, there were no easy means to stay connected with other professionals in the field. With such an extensive collection of professionals(Also candidates), Linkedin is currently the most significant source of candidates for companies to reach. In its business model, providing/making candidate information to recruiters, the hiring manager is the most crucial revenue source for LinkedIn. The access to candidate information is a subscription service; there are various subscription levels for candidate search. Linkedin also hosts job posting for a fee. There are NO fees for candidates to join or publish their profiles. Among all of the engagements and traffic, advertisements are also Linkedin's source of revenue. It also offers a premium subscription option for professionals if they want to track their profile activities, which is also a source of income.

Success criteria:

The following are some of the areas we like to see a steady uptick monitored weekly/monthly and year or year. Seasonal factors should be factored in.

# The large pool of people on the platform. (Acquisition/Activation)

# Frequent updates by the professional, i.e., Job changes, information on some events, etc. (Engagement/Retention)

# Number of subscriptions of recruiters (Monetization)

# Number of premium subscriptions(Monetization)

Users :

There are three user groups for a company like linked in.

- Professionals (Non-paying)

- Professionals with Premium membership (Paying & also seeing opportunities)

- Recruiters & companies posting job openings. (Paying and searching for suitable candidates)

User journey for these three segments is different, with some overlap in paying & non-paying professionals.

Professionals:

1) Through friends, media, or other means, come to know of LinkedIn (Awareness)

2) Professionals(P) reach the LinkedIn site, read through the information, and decide to signup, or some may abandon at this time. (Failed conversion)

3) (P) adds the career information & all set (Activation)

4) Time to time, updates profile, provides recommendations, comments on colleagues (Engagement)

5) Able to reach out to long lost or current friends, can see some job posts, etc. (Helps Retention)

6) Optional, some may upgrade to Premium membership for a job hunt or to raise their profile, etc. (Helps with Monetization and contributing to Engagement and Rendition)

Recruiter & Companies:

1) Awareness is assumed, so not going to elaborate on it. As we are focusing on the USA, it is not metrics I would track for either (p) and Recruiter(R)

2) Post the job opens if any.

3) Search for candidates they are looking for the open positions (may or may not be posted on LinkedIn)

4) Try to reach the potential matches and follow through as they get responses.

5) Check for responses for their job openings

Along the way, I have labeled some of the activities and will be using them as candidates for metrics. I will walk through them and justification.

Top Metrics:

The following are the metrics to be monitored.

1)  Number of active members (Updated their profile in last year or provided recommendations or reacted to post or posted any news)

               This is the basis for attracting the recrutiers and job posting.

2)  Number of outreach from Recruiters to candidates (It is an indicator that the recrutiers are finding the suitable candidates for their needs)

3)  Number of Job posting (active) & active recrutier subscriptions

@Bijan, you should enable video posting of the questions. It is a long post to write, towards the end I was pushing to finish. The benefits of video answer can be much more. Users can get feedback on their delivery, tone. One can get much more feedback.